It’s been 53 days since Giannis Michailidis, a 34-year-old Greek anarchist in prison since 2013, has started a hunger strike. “A choice that has as its motivation the much desired freedom”, he wrote on May 23 in a letter from the prison of Marauder, in central Greece, where he applied for probation after serving part of his 20-year sentence. “His condition is critical. We cannot let someone die who only asks that his rights be respected ”, he now tells Republic his lawyer, Giorgos Kakarnias. His case is sparking several protests in Greece, while concern over his condition grows.
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The crimes for which Michalidis was convicted are not minor: armed robbery and attempted murder of a policeman in 2011. For these, in 2013, he received the maximum sentence, 20 years. Among the evidence that remains etched in the collective memory, there are the photos that portray him with a bow and gas mask during a protest in Syntagma, Athens, in 2011 and which made him famous as “the archer of Syntagma” .
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In 2021, he completed the statutory period to ask for probation, but his request has already been denied twice. After the second refusal, in May, he decided to start a hunger strike. On the same day, the authorities accepted the suspended sentence for the policeman who killed Alexandros Andréas Grigoropoulos, a 15-year-old student in 2008, during a night patrol in the anarchist quarter of Athens. Exarchia. An event that triggered weeks of violent demonstrations and unrest throughout the country and which helped make Michalidis the symbolic face of the protest.
“He lost more than 20% of his total weight. According to the doctors, her body already shows signs of permanent damage, ”continues Kakarnias. What worries the lawyer most, however, is that the 34-year-old will have to resist another 11 days, until the date of the new appeal scheduled for 25 July. Forty-one years ago, Irish rebel leader Bobby Sands lasted 66 days without food in protest to claim political prisoner status for Northern Irish separatism detainees, not to be considered common criminals. Bobby Sands was the last person to die in a European prison as a result of a hunger strike. “If they still reject the request for release then it will be 65 days without food for Giannis, and for sure it will not stop,” explains the lawyer.
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Protest
For the freedom of Michailidis hundreds of people gathered yesterday in the streets of Athens, the capital of Greece, and marched among songs and large posters. An appeal attended by members of civil society and left-wing organizations, such as representatives of the socialist-democratic party MeRA25. “It is proof of the revenge of the rotten bourgeois power that the government represents. Let Giannis Michailidis slowly die for vengeful reasons, clearly dividing citizens into first and second categories ”, reads the appeal for mobilization. The reference is to Dimitris Lignadis, a Greek actor arrested last year for the rape of two minors, whose 12-year sentence has been suspended and has been out of prison since yesterday.
For many young Greek anarchists, the murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos it was a turning point, a catalyst, in a period of economic crisis in which they felt the need to overthrow a political system that served only “the interests of the richest”. Among these young people were Giannis Michailidis and Nikos Romanos, one of the 15-year-old’s friends present the night he was killed. Their paths will cross until they are arrested in 2013 for the robbery of a bank in Valventos, Western Macedonia. “It was a big case in Greece because, after his arrest, he and his accomplices were beaten by the police. But the agents edited their mug shots to hide the bruises, ”recalls Kakarnias. Michailidis, Romanos and the other two accomplices immediately became heroes in the eyes of anarchist groups, the symbol of the violence of the authorities.
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In the first months in prison, Romanos, sentenced to 16 years, went on a hunger strike to obtain leave to continue his studies at the university. Solidarity protests followed the affair until, after a month, the government agreed to his requests. After six years in prison, Nikos Ramos was granted probation in 2019. But for his accomplice, according to the court, there is not enough evidence to guarantee that he is no longer a danger to society. Indeed, his escape from prison two years ago and the crimes committed as a fugitive, two bank robberies, would prove the exact affirmation. “Excuses and maneuvers based on false judgments” to keep him in pre-trial detention, writes the Greek anarchist in his letters, taking advantage of any legal aspect to deny him probation. But this time it’s different, Giannis Michailidis has made it known that he has no intention of returning to his cell: he will come out of the hospital as a free or dead man.